


Love and Letting Go

by beingbaz



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M, The 456
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-20
Updated: 2012-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 06:17:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beingbaz/pseuds/beingbaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto is doomed to die, and Jack has no choice but to watch.</p><p>Ficlet written for the prompt: "Darkness falls, I'm letting go." (Good Charlotte, "The Day That I Die").</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love and Letting Go

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended, no money made. Just for fun.

Every moment with Captain Jack Harkness had felt stolen to Ianto Jones. He knew that Jack was immortal, for the most part. He could certainly die, but he never stayed dead long. This knowledge stayed with him, during the stolen moments in the Hub, to the times when he invited Jack to his flat, and they loved each other softly and gently, or hurriedly, full of passion. Jack could and would always come back to him. Neither of them had expected their time together to be so short lived, however.

The 456 had come and changed everything for both of them. For Jack, it had exposed truths he'd never wanted to remember. For Ianto, it had exposed that which he'd tried desperately to forget: His own mortality.

As he lay cradled in Jack's arms, the very air he breathed poison to him and his lover, misery slipped into Ianto. He knew he was dying. There was no hope, no second chance. He was not Jack. He wouldn't be coming back from this, no matter how he wanted to.

“I love you,” he said.

He felt the tightness of Jack's grip as he begged Ianto not to leave him, heard himself telling Jack that he knew he'd be forgotten in a thousand years. Despite never hearing it, Ianto knew Jack loved him back. Acknowledging this to himself was bittersweet. As life slipped away from him, Ianto could hear Jack promising to remember him. To remember Ianto. The Welshman only hoped Jack would remember how much he was loved, whether he remembered Ianto himself or not.

With that, Ianto let go of the world, feeling the touch of the man he loved, and wishing he could stay.

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting from my LJ.


End file.
